hanging on the edge of nothing

continuing this series...

day five - your dreams.

i just want to be a writer, okay?

it's not my fault that i have only one talent in life, and that talent decides to come and go as it pleases. it may not even be that great, what do i know? all i know is that the one thing i want to do with my life (write) is the most difficult thing to achieve as a "real" job. i'm not competitive enough for an actual writing job and my grades weren't good enough so an MFA is probably out of the question, even if i decided i wanted to jump back into school again.

and the worst part is, i don't even know what i want to write - poetry? maybe, but the only poetry i can manage to write these days are either a) dripping with treacly nostalgia or b) about doomed love/my past that i've romanticized to sound more glamorous than it actually was! i tried to write short stories but that never worked out. i even tried to start writing a book and well, that just sucked. the only thing that i'm really that good at is writing non-fiction, writing about myself and my life experiences in overly romantic terms. but could i really write a memoir? my life isn't even that exciting!

i'm having a minor life crisis here.

i don't want to sit in an office and write about things i barely care about when there's real truth and beauty in the world waiting to be written about! i don't want to stay inside all day when i'd be happier just sitting in a field writing about a freaking blade of grass! i don't want to force myself to find a job that i know i will never love because i am not a career girl, i'm a writer, probably not the best writer, but a writer nonetheless. and i want to do what i love, is that too much to ask for?

i know so many people here in DC who are all about careers, careers, careers. if you don't have a career path or a five-year-plan or any vision for your future then you are not a feminist, you do not have self-worth, and a whole bunch of other nonsense that, on paper, should apply to me.

i don't care about a career, or a five-year-plan, or losing my freaking independence as a woman if i don't have a job. i am a writer and that means that my primary purpose in life is to feel, and then put those feelings into words. i want to love life, and i want to feel the good and the bad as much as i can, and i want to enjoy friends and enjoy family and i want passion and i want joy and i want anger; i want to "suck the marrow of life," damn it!

i am so frustrated with trying to find a job that i know i won't enjoy, when all i want to do is write and write and write until i have enough to make some sort of compilation and get someone, anyone to read it and get someone, anyone to say it's good enough.

that's it. and yet, it seems so impossible.

i will never forget those books and poems and essays that i've read that have made me laugh out loud, cry, think, write, dance, call my friends and say "you just have to read this book/poem/essay/whatever it is." i will never forget the way other people's words have made me feel, the moment i realize that this is important, that it's speaking to me in ways i never knew were possible.

i just want to give that feeling to someone else. is that too much to ask for?

it's the way we feel that this is real

seriously dudes, i feel like my life undergoes a spring cleaning every year. maybe it's because every time lent rolls around i take a look at myself and think, "hey, you can always be better!" and then i actually go and do something about it... but this fledgling spring in particular has been great because i can actually feel myself getting better, and i feel myself becoming happier.

i always wonder whether i secretly have SAD (seasonal affective disorder, for those non-midwesterners out there), because winter seriously gets me down in the dumps. i cannot tell you how many times i have cried on the phone to my mom, to jeff, about how much i hate DC and the weather and the get-ahead mentality and all that good stuff. and while i still feel similarly about the get-ahead mentality (among other DC work/people-related things), now that the sun is out and it's warmer and the cherry blossoms are in bloom, i find myself walking a little slower, smiling a little more, and realizing that i don't hate it here. maybe it's not what i would have dreamed for myself - i have always wanted something a little more exotic, exciting - but it's all right. and i'm actually happy. and life is good.

the temperature outside is above fifty degrees. the sky is brilliantly blue. i'm wearing a skirt without leggings. i've been going to mass almost every day. i've been eating healthier and i am in much better shape than i've been in a while. my leg hasn't been in pain or swollen for months. i'm about to buy a plastic adirondack chair for balcony. my family is coming to visit. molly's baby shower is this weekend. jeff and i are coming up on two years. summer is just around the corner. spring is a beautiful time that reminds me how much i love life, and that anywhere can be home if i keep the things and people i love close to my heart.